From Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media
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Dr Sandra Collins (Chair)
Dr Sandra Collins is the University Librarian at University College Dublin (UCD), and a member of the Board of Governors and Guardians of the National Gallery of Ireland. She was the Director of the National Library of Ireland from 2015 - 2022, a member of the Government’s Expert Advisory Group on Centenary Commemorations, and previously the founding Director of the Digital Repository of Ireland in the Royal Irish Academy. Originally a mathematician, she has been recognised as a female role model and one of the Top 100 Women in STEM, and received awards for Research, Innovation and Impact, and four Irish eGovernment Awards.
Dr Síobhra Aiken
Síobhra Aiken is a lecturer in Roinn na Gaeilge agus an Léinn Cheiltigh (Department of Irish and Celtic Studies) at Queen’s University Belfast. A former Fulbright Scholar and a member of Young Academy Ireland (Royal Irish Academy), she has published widely on the social and cultural history of twentieth-century Ireland. Síobhra’s latest monograph Spiritual Wounds: Trauma, Testimony and the Irish Civil War (Irish Academic Press, 2022) was awarded the Royal Historical Society Whitfield Prize and the Michael J. Durkan Prize from the American Association of Irish Studies.
Dr Zélie Asava
Dr Zélie Asava is a specialist in questions of race, gender, screen studies and visual culture. She is the author of The Black Irish Onscreen (2013) and Mixed Race Cinemas (2017), and co-editor of a Special Issue of the Journal of Scandinavian Cinema (2022). Zélie works for the Irish Film Classification Office and the Abbey Theatre, sits on the Boards of Screen Ireland (as co-Chair of the Gender, Equality and Diversity Committee), the Irish Film Institute, academic journal French Screen Studies, multimedia magazine Unapologetic, and Catalyst International Film Festival. She is a member of the European Commission’s Capital of Culture expert panel.
Annie Fletcher
Annie Fletcher is currently Director of IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art). Previously she was Chief Curator at the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven and a tutor at de Appel, Amsterdam, the Dutch Art Institute (DAI) and the Design Academy Eindhoven. She was co-founder and co-director of the rolling curatorial platform If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution with Frederique Bergholtz and Tanja Elstgeest (2005-10).
In 2012, she was Curator of Ireland’s Contemporary Art biennale EVA International and is regularly called upon to sit on International juries, including the 2019 Preis der Nationalgalerie, Berlin; the 2016 Irish Pavilion at Venice; the 2015 Köler Prize, Estonia; the 2014 Turner Prize, UK; the 2013 Leopold Bloom Art Award, Hungary; and the 2011 BC21 Art Award, Austria.
Áine Kerr
Áine Kerr is an award winning entrepreneur and broadcaster. She was co-founder of Kinzen, acquired by Spotify, and Managing Editor of Storyful, acquired by News Corporation. Áine is a two-time graduate of Dublin City University, with a Bachelor of Education (B’Ed) and Masters in Journalism (MAJ). She holds a Masters in Business Practice with University College Cork (UCC) and is a Fellow of the Sulzberger Leadership Program in Columbia University, NYC. A former Global Head of Journalism Partners at Facebook in New York, Áine has worked for Ireland’s main broadsheet newspapers. Áine is a member of the Gaisce Council (overseeing the President of Ireland’s award for young people), Chair of Rethink Ireland and Chair of The Shona Project.
Mrs Sara Lammens
Sara Lammens (1978) studied Musicology and Philosophical academy at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. She started her professional career as a researcher at the Alamire Foundation, the international centre for the study of music in the Low Countries. In 2004, Sara began working for the Royal Library of Belgium (KBR), where she was the Head of the Music Department for a few months and then moved to the Communications Department. In 2013, she became the Support Services Director of KBR and was responsible for managing and coordinating Budget and Finances, Facilities, Human Resources, ICT, Prevention and Well-Being. Sara also took the Digitisation and Public Services under her wing. In May 2017, she was appointed the General Director a.i. of KBR, responsible for the general management of the institution and its representation in Belgium and abroad. In March 2023, Sara was officially appointed General Director of KBR. Since May 2023, Sara also temporarily heads the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium.
Dr Mary McAuliffe
Dr Mary McAuliffe is a historian and lecturer in Gender Studies at UCD. Her latest publications include; (co-authored with Harriet Wheelock) The Diaries of Kathleen Lynn: A Life Revealed through Personal Writing (2023), and Margaret Skinnider; a biography (2020). Other publications include; (co-edited with Miriam Haughton and Emilie Pine) Legacies of the Magdalen Laundries: Commemoration, gender, and the postcolonial carceral state (2021). Mary is co-editor (with Jennifer Redmond) of The Politics of Gender and Sexuality in modern Ireland; A Reader (forthcoming autumn 2024). She is currently completing her book, Gendered and Sexual Violence in the Irish War of Independence and Civil War, 1919-1923 (forthcoming 2025). She is a past President of the Women’s History Association of Ireland and is a member of the Humanities Institute, UCD and the Women’s Museum Advocacy Group.
Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan
Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan is a Dublin-based writer and performer and cultural consultant from India. Her work has been published by Dedalus Press, Lifeboat Press, Poetry Ireland, Banshee, and The Stinging Fly, amongst others. Chandrika was selected to participate in the Irish Writers Centre’s XBorders programme (2018 and 2020), Poetry Ireland’s Introductions (2021), and the Science Gallery Dublin’s Rapid Residency (2021). Chandrika was editor of Poetry Ireland’s Trumpet Issue 9 and is book reviewer for Children’s Books Ireland’s Inis magazine. She was Writer in Residence for the Institute of Physics for 2023. www.chandrika.ie
Colm O'Callaghan
Currently Executive Director at the Gate Theatre, Colm has spent almost twenty years working for leading arts organisations in both Ireland and Australia. Before the Gate, Colm spent 12 years in Sydney, working as Executive Director of celebrated dance theatre company, Force Majeure, and before that, Company Manager at Sydney Theatre Company. Before moving to Australia in 2010, Colm worked on numerous productions with both Druid and Landmark Productions. Colm has served on a number of not-for-profit and government Boards, including on the arts advisory board to the New South Wales government, and on the Ausdance Board, Australia’s national dance body.
Orla O'Connor
Orla O'Connor is Director of National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI), the leading national women’s membership organisation in Ireland, with over 190 member groups. She was Co-Director of Together For Yes, the national civil society campaign to remove the 8th Amendment in the referendum. For this role, Orla was recognised as one of the 100 most influential people by TIME magazine in 2019. Orla holds an MA in European Social Policy, and after starting out in local community-based projects, has worked in senior management in non-governmental organisations for over 25 years. Orla represents the NWCI in a wide range of national and international fora.
Orla is a feminist and an expert in the policies needed to progress women’s equality in Ireland. She is an accomplished public speaker, with a strong analysis of public policy. Orla has led numerous high level, successful campaigns on a wide range of issues on women’s rights, including social welfare reform, pension reform and for the introduction of quality and affordable childcare. Orla is passionate about ensuring access to women’s reproductive rights; about ensuring more women are in leadership positions; about ending violence against women; and increasing women’s economic equality.
Lynn Scarff
Lynn Scarff is the Director of the National Museum of Ireland and took up her position in May 2018.
Initially, working in environmental education across a diversity of projects including the Ballymun Regeneration, Lynn’s work is embedded in collaborative practice. As part of the initial development team of Science Gallery Dublin at Trinity College Dublin, she developed a programme of compelling cultural experiences that explored the boundaries of art and science and connected with a target audience of 15 – 25 year olds. In 2012, she was part of the leadership team that established the Global Science Gallery Network bringing the vision of Science Gallery to eight cities globally by 2020. In 2014, she was appointed Director leading Science Gallery Dublin through a process of organisational change, strategic planning and development.
Lynn is an advocate for the participative museum. Her research work focuses on non-formal learning settings and the opportunities presented by museums and cultural spaces to engage young people, with a particular focus on historically marginalised audiences. She has presented and written on these themes both in education, museum practice and communication journals globally. Her research and practice work has been funded through competitive grants awarded by Science Foundation Ireland, the Wellcome Trust in the UK and the European Commission through Horizon 2020 and Creative Europe calls.
She studied Natural Sciences at Trinity College Dublin, specialising in zoology and natural history and holds an MSc in Science Communications. In 2016 she was awarded a National Arts Strategies Kresge Fellowship completed over one year at Harvard, Michigan Ross and Berkeley Business Schools in the USA, which focused on the critical elements of sustainable business development in the cultural sector.
Sinead Copeland
Sinéad Copeland is a Principal Officer in the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media with responsibility for the development of the new arts and culture policy and the development of the Night-Time Economy. Sinéad previously led the Decade of Centenaries Programme 2012-2023.
Jane Ann Duffy
As head of the Equality and Gender Equality Unit in DCEDIY, Jane Ann leads on Government policy on gender equality, as well as overarching equality policy and legislation. Jane Ann was formerly a diplomat in the Department of Foreign Affairs and was posted to a number of Irish Embassies, before moving to the Department of Justice to work in criminal law reform.
Jane Ann is a member of the Management Boards of the European Institute for Gender Equality and the National Disability Authority.